to expect social services after 6 year old burnt foot on cooker? Feel horrendous

[Soscared100]

Title says it all really
Am petrified social services will now be involved after google searching what happens next
My 6 year old climbed onto the kitchen side last night and stood on one of the electric hobs.
It had been turned off for approx 10 mins as was making her milk for bed and she went out there saying she was getting a cup off the side, instead she climbed up to get a different cup from the cupboard.
After an hour running under water it was only red so we followed the advice on the NHS website and applied Vaseline once completely cooled and wrapped in cling film and gave calpol but shortly after I noticed the blister covered 1/3 of her foot.
I feel sick even writing it as I just never thought she would do this, she isn't even a climber and we only took our baby gates off the kitchen a few months ago as she could undo them.
Called NHS direct once I noticed the size of the blister when she had fallen asleep and I was able to remove the cling film and we were told to go to A&E who cut the blister off, wrapped it and sent us to the burns hospital 20 miles away.
Only recently back from there and will be there every 3 days for as many weeks to get the dressing changed and so on.
Feel so guilty and also completely panicked social services will now be involved as I could have prevented this happening.
There were lots of safeguarding questions at both hospitals and both asking if we had social services involved prior to this ( we haven't ) but none said they were going to contact them but just don't know what to think.
My poor little girl.

Safeguarding questions are the norm when you attend A+E with a child, quite often they will ask the child what happened too rather than the parents. I'm sure if they are satisfied with this, then they won't refer. With little ones, they will refer as a matter of course to the HV, we've had to explain multiple visits due to asthma to our HV, just so they can offer advice/assistance if necessary. My dd had numerous accidents when she started school, massive egg on head from falling off scooter, falling off a trampoline, no follow up except teacher may ask child what happened but again if they are happy with explanation then they won't refer. Please don't worry.

She was quite happy to say what happened so they didn't really need to ask her as such as she volunteered it
Did the school nurse make contact with you after thee injuries?

Soscared you need to think about why your reaction is so extreme. I've had to take dc to A&E many times but don't recall such angst about follow-ups. Have you had extreme anxiety about anything else recently?

And will just add I'm on high dose anti anxiety meds and have a lot of responsibility at work about safeguarding so don't fret that you can't have anxiety and be a good child carer.

I don't think my reaction is all that extreme especially now a few days have passed and my little one is feeling better
It was a horrible thing to watch and something I've never dealt with or expected to happen and the questions just threw me a little - I think they would most parents.
Then I googled it and lots of children ( albeit younger than mine ) who had burns had had referrals which panicked me as absolutely nothing mentioned at the hospital

I know it's been a few days but you're still worrying: earlier today you started another thread about possible attention from the authorities. I'm pointing out that I don't think your anxiety is the type that's allayed with reassurance.

My 1 year old grabbed my curlers once.. i only took him to the docs hours later when i notiched the blister as he didnt cry and i thought he only caught the plastic bit.
The burses wrapped it and we had to come back every other day to manage it. He still didnt cry when they where changed...

Ss wasnt called

But if they do they will prob just pop round have a chat ask hiw it happened. Then case closed. Try not to scare yourself over this. Accidendts happen.

Everyone including serval sw have told you not to worry.

I started the other thread about the role of school nurse as didn't think people would read through 8 pages and see that comment if I just added it onto this one
I am feeling much better now and not really looking for reassurance as such, I just like to know and the unknown throws me a little but I'm pleased with how she's getting along and everyone at the hospital were lovely so I couldn't really ask for more

Glad she's on the mend. Go and have a hot chocolate or a gin and enjoy Christmas

Is it generally the day after event they would contact if they were going to?
Yeah its not unusual. You are very anxious, not sure why. It was just an accident eh? No stress. These things happen..

I agree with others about your anxiety levels and hope you feel better soon. Are you particularly anxious about her safety generally, because a stair gate for a 6 year old isn't normal?

Your six year old had a safety gate up until recently and has her bedtime milk in a bottle?

Children need to experience risk (not danger) in order to learn how to assess risk. I wonder if your (totally understandable) extreme protection of her is preventing you helping g her learn about this.

I would have thought most 6 year olds can open a stair gate?

One of the reasons I like doing emergency paediatric work is I enjoy chatting to the kids about how they hurt themselves - you hear some crazy stories and see some dawning realisations that they have been idiots. Also a good opportunity to do some intervention work (I delude myself that the doctor telling them they were an idiot for jumping off the top bunk will be more effective than their parent who has probably been repeating it like a mantra for weeks)

Everyone who works with kids (Health, SS included) knows that they do mad things. We question to make sure the injury is plausible e.g. I'd be really concerned if you told me a 12month old who has just learnt to walk climbed on the kitchen worktop to stand on the hob but a 6yo is easily imagined especially with fine detail like went to get a drink but chose to use a different cup.

We also look at parents responses - and even if there is a delayed response (not the case here, but other people might read this) that in itself won't trigger concerns -it can be hard to decide whether to go to hospital and no one wants to waste A&E's time. Many many doctors & nurses have stories of telling their kids to stop putting it on, administering pain relief and sending them to bed only to wake in the morning (or middle of the night) to realise that perhaps it wasn't just sprained/bruised.

My own Mother did it to my sister when she broke her arm.

We also know the spectre of SS is stressful. I won't tell you not to worry but will just say try to think of it as helping vulnerable children. By exposing caring/loving parents to scrutiny we will hopefully prevent other children from suffering..

Yes of course at 6 she could open stair gates,
We left it up on the kitchen as we have a niece of 2 who visits often but it wasn't helpful as my daughter would open it and then leave it open so in the end we just took it down!
Even when it was up, when we went to the kitchen, even after us making dinner for example I didn't run after her to make sure she wasn't climbing on the side and then across the oven.
We have had lots of chats about staying safe in the kitchen and I think this happened as she just completely forgot the stove would be hot 10 minutes after it was used.
The pan wasn't on it but in the sink so no reminder for her.
I am feeling lots better today and as I keep saying it was the stories when I googled that made me panic, not what happened or even the hospitals.

Also i don't mean a bottle like a baby bottle, a plastic sports bottle like they take to school with water in

The thing so many people forget when chucking around terms like anxiety or anxious like its a bad thing is that problem anxiety is when people are disproportionately concerned about stuff.

It is entirely normal to be concerned when your child is injured it is also entirely normal to be more concerned when it's something like a burn in a hard to heal place as it's even more normal for a normal decent parent to be worried about the possibility that someone may ask for justification if they themselves feel like they may have dropped the ball. Combine that with nobody actually telling you that they will/will not be referring and it's not outside the boundaries of normal.

IME I would be a far more bothered if someone showed no concern than them showing a reasonable amount

I agree with above post and thankyou for your reply
This injury is something I have absolutely no idea on, never had a burn other than a finger on the oven which blistered and disappeared after a few days so this is out of my comfort zone completely for a start, then we have to keep going back for changes of the bandage so isn't as if it's happened and now it's over, it's going to be a lot of being there backwards and forwards until healed they said.
I then made the mistake of googling and seeing what others had been through although I did point out these children were quite a lot younger which I'm not sure if that makes a difference ( maybe they would think stair gates should be up at 1/2 years old for instance )
I do appreciate all the comments but I honestly think most people would be just as worried especially when I wasn't sure what I was dealing with but it seems as if it will be the school nurse if anything which is absolutely fine!
I'm sure most can understand I do feel terrible even though I couldn't have guessed she was about to do it

The important thing to remember is that accidents do happen whilst they are very distressing to parents and often painful to children they are a fact of life,
I personally would avoid Google for that type of thing because it's very scary indeed as you often find worse case situations, the other thing to be mindful of is how it can be used as a teaching aid for future prevention obviously with the appropriate sympathy chucked in along with not scaremongering if that makes sense,

I was a social worker for years and if for some reason I did end up coming to see you (unlikely) what I would be looking at is have you considered how you can reduce the risk of further accidents happening again of course I would also be aware that shit does happen.
One of the things I would also be doing is offering reassurance that shit does happen to perfectly decent parents because normal kids attract it

The only problem I have is that the only way to completely ensure something like this never happens again is to ban her from the kitchen until the oven / stove is completely cool but then I'm sure other people will say that's too over protective
I very much doubt she will ever do something like this again but if it were a baby of 2 then the stairgate goes back up and job done but this is slightly harder at this age as of course she can undo everything!

I feel for you, OP. Not the same, but when DS2 was 6 weeks I fell down the stairs and he flew out my arms and down several (wooden, sharpish edged) stairs before landing on one. Great big graze and lump on his head, screaming horribly. I took him to A&E, and he was observed for the day (can't ask a newborn his name and how many fingers you're holding up I guess) and he was fine.

I spent a week feeling like utter shit. I was so ashamed, thinking "why didn't I hold him tighter", " everyone must think I'm a terrible mum ", thinking about how scared I was picking up this tiny baby with a big lump on his head. Little bugger had nodded off on the way to the hospital and loved getting passed around the nurses.

I think it's normal to feel shock over this sort of thing, that's your baby and burns look scary.

Thankyou
It was just more scary as initially it was just red and whilst in the water she was fine, chatting away happily and even when taken out although it was red, when wrapped up there was no sign of a blister and then all of a sudden it just looked awful and I knew we had to go to hospital
It's so easy for me to say to you accidents happen which is what I absolutely would say if a friend of mine slipped holding the baby and for you to say to me, but harder to take our own advice isn't it!
She is quite looking forward to going back to the hospital for her dressing change to show them her gifts so I'm holding onto the fact that she will be fine, in a few weeks this will all be a horrible memory and not something ongoing

OP - really don't worry. SS have a lot of real cruelty cases to deal with, at the most someone will chat to you. But they need to be informed just to make sure someone is overseeing the system - they are the ones responsible and held to account if a child "slips through the system".
A one off accident, where the child themselves could explain what happened - is not a cause for concern really. A pattern of repeat injuries (maybe recorded by different people: different A and Es, school, GPs etc.) is more concern.
Actually more of us may have had things referred to SS than we know - I saw my SS files once and was surprised by two incidents that had been referred (and which they had not followed up as in at least one case the incident wasn't my failing but the person reporting's).

Now you will feel guilty for ages, but it will get better.

Its probably the shock of seeing your child injured that is making you like this today. Is there someone you can speak to? Have you family you can chat to about this to calm you down?

IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. What do you think they are going to do if they do visit? They need to make sure children are safe, not recommend you carry her in a bubble wrap sling until she is 18. She is ok.

IT WAS AN ACCIDENT and could happen anyone. I hope over the next few days you put this behind you. Good luck. IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!